Threat Quality Press

Guys, remember card catalogs?!

Now, as with most half-words the internet has latched onto, it gets a bit overused. That’s okay – the internet is vast and chatty, and churns out new words at an alarming rate. Some are bound to catch on.

But if you’re using “meh” as part of a larger critique? You are misusing the word. Well. “Word.”

Anyway, we can fix this. 

I’m thinking of Bill Maher, whose whining about the Jon Stewart rally was prefaced with the header, “Million Meh March.”

OK. Cute. But…wait, let’s go back.

Far as I can tell, “meh” gained prominence from “The Simpsons,” which used it several times but really locked it down when Lisa used it in response to (and I’m trusting Wikipedia to remember this for me) Homer trying to get her excited about something.

Her response: Meh. M.E.H. Meh.

But the joke here is that it’s Lisa who responds this way. Not slackery Bart – not even eloquent little LISA can find it in her to mount an opinion any more complicated than one guttural sound.

THAT’s what “meh” is. When you hear it, you should understand it as “I can’t even be bothered to expound upon my lack of interest – that’s how uninteresting it is.”

So, any writers out there: if you use the word “Meh”? Whatever you’re writing should only be a one-word post. (Well, okay, you should probably reference what you’re “meh”ing, but you get my point.)

There.

I AM HERE TO HELP.

(Expecting a comment responding “meh” to this post in 3…2…1…now.)

This entry was posted on November 16, 2010 at 11:50 am and is filed under Jeff Holland, Threat Quality with tags Jeff Holland, linguistics of mockery, Meh, Threat Quality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.